Inclusive growth an illusion, says Plan panel

Secretary of the Planning Commission, Sudha Pillai, on Wednesday said inclusive growth in India was still an illusion despite efforts to address it.

Pillai said a nation should ensure that people are compensated adequately for their work by paying the minimum wage. Otherwise, children will be forced to stay out of school to work and families will be malnourished.

Speaking at the SKOCH summit - organised jointly by the Government of India and Skoch development foundation - on "mainstreaming the marginalised", she advocated against "obsessing with handouts" as a means of poverty alleviation and asked for focusing on enforcement of basic entitlements. She also said this would address the problem of exclusion of the majority of Indians who were working in the unorganised sector.

She said labour laws like Minimum Wages Act, Equal Remuneration Act and Maternity Benefits Act were not being implemented because of rampant corruption in the system and middlemen forcing a majority of workers in the country to live in the economic fringes and forcing many of their children to work and stay out of school.

National Advisory Council member N C Saxena said the exclusion was the outcome of neglect by the states and the Centre. He said it was unfortunate that the tribal policy has not yet been implemented and the displacement policy for tribals is still in the making.

He held the tribal affairs ministry responsible and said it had failed miserably in its purpose and no one knows who the minister was. The ministry has been reduced to giving grants to NGOs and providing scholarships to tribal children. It should be totally revamped so that it can have a high-profile minister who will gather evidence of injustices against tribals, he added.

The session, moderated by Urban Development Minister Saugata Roy, was also addressed by Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed and Nabard MD K G Karmarkar.